Mapping Information 1 Million Ways

Inspiration: Dubai’s World Expo, 2020

To begin, I want to start by connecting you with my other blog, Global Food Studies, in which I unpack my exploratory research trip to the 2015 World Expo in Milan, Italy where I analyzed transnational American food studies. In this post, I include graphics just released that visualize Dubai’s plans for its own World Expo in 2020. This is a complex infographic, and attempts to visualize three pillars of mapping that I seek to implement in my research and teaching: mapping arguments, mapping primary sources, and mapping constellations. On the left, the graphic uses world and regional maps to geographically pin point this event at the center of both the world and the region. Second, the graphic utilizes a partial aerial view to provide an overview of the park’s components, using scaled images to illuminate proximity of these components to one another. Third, on the bottom, the infographic uses photo-like renderings to provide snapshot stills of the park on the ground to shed light on the experience of seeing and being in the space at that given moment. Finally, on the right, the infographic uses graphics to unpack the park’s thematic layers while showing connecting threads between the park’s structures and its conceptual framework.